Ask.com acquires domain monetizer, Sendori ...

[Vision]

Great reporting by superstar investigative journalist, DnJournals' Ron Jackson!

http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2009/dailyposts/01-22-09.htm

Jan. 22, 2009 Post

Compiled by Ron Jackson
(DN Journal Editor/Publisher)

In the first major domain company acquisition of 2009 Sendori .com has been acquired by Ask Sponsored Listings (operators of Ask.com), a division of Barry Diller's IAC. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sendori, who we profiled in a recent article, developed a unique new advertising exchange that allowed major advertisers to purchase the direct navigation traffic generated by top tier generic domain names placed in their system by domain owners. Sendori gave owners of high quality domains a real alternative to parking and that strategy has paid off handsomely.

In our article Sendori Co-Founder and CEO Ofer Ronen told us, "When we looked at the domain parking business we realized that visitors to domains would have a much better user experience if they were directed to the best websites in the world, instead of landing on a parking page." Ronen used Travelocity as an example of a site that someone searching for travel information could automatically be sent to when they type in a travel related domain name. "Domain owners, no matter how much they try, can never build up the kind of brand recognition that a Travelocity has," Ronen said.

"So we thought the traffic would do better if it flowed to them and that a market-based approach, where there was competitive bidding, would also help domain owners earn the most possible money. The advertisers that can benefit the most from the traffic would be the ones who would bid the most," Ronen added. The marketplace he envisioned went live on August 1, 2006 and now, just a little over two years later they become part of Diller's IAC internet empire where Sendori will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary.

It looks like a perfect match because Ask will bring many new top tier advertisers to Sendori which will in turn allow them to pair more of their domain owner clients with

the best possible direct advertiser matches. At the time of the acquistion Sendori said it was providing 130,000 advertisers 33 million page views per month from direct navigation traffic.

Sendori's Director of Business Development, Michael Feeley, told us the company will have a booth at next week's DOMAINfest Global conference in Hollywood, California, so domain owners attending the show can drop by the Sendori exhibit to learn more about the company's innovative platform.
(Posted Jan. 22, 2009)

also showcased in TechCrunch...

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/22/iacs-askcom-acquires-domain-name-monetizer-sendori/

IAC’s Ask.com Acquires Domain Name Monetizer Sendori

by Robin Wauters on January 22, 2009

Ask Sponsored Listings, a division of Ask.com (itself a subsidiary to IAC) has acquired Sendori, a startup that introduced interesting advertising exchange technology about two years ago that enabled advertisers to purchase direct navigation traffic generated by top tier domain names, bypassing PPC advertising providers like Google and Yahoo when it comes to monetizing parked domains.

Sendori developed the technology, dubbed PureLeads and patent-pending, to enable both search advertisers and domain owners to benefit from typed-in domain traffic based on the highest auction bids. With rates for PPC (Pay-per-click) dramatically dropping the past few months, Sendori was quickly becoming a nice alternative for domain name owners who traditionally looked no further than the usual suspects offering PPC advertising deals.

Seems like a good match with Ask Sponsored Listings, an Ask.com unit which focuses on keyword targeted advertising on a rather large (+100) network of sites including properties like Match.com, TicketMaster, Ask.com, Evite, CitySearch, CNet, etc. Ask.com has also actively been purchasing valuable domain names and websites like Dictionary.com, Reference.com and Thesaurus.com. Sendori’s client roster includes names like Netflix, GEICO, Hewlett-Packard and other familiar brands.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but we suspect Sendori got a good deal as its model was clearly working: the company said it was providing 130,000 advertisers 33 million page views per month from direct navigation traffic at the time of the acquisition. From the 11 employees (including contractors), 10 will make the move over to IAC.

The startup had raised only $800,000 in Series A financing, from Baseline Ventures, First Round Capital, Maples Investments and Felicis Ventures.

 

[Acquisition]

interesting acquisition.

 

[Commerce]

Actually, a really logical one if they intend to compete effectively with Live, Yahoo! and Google. Diller is an interesting guy and not one to fool around with his businesses. If he likes it, he will back it and build it.

Ask is a very strong property and has better name branding than any other second tier search engine (I view Live, Yahoo! and Google as the first tier).

Of all the potential challengers in search Ask probably has the best chance to compete with the top tier. As such, it needs to develop common infrastructure to its competition.

As I said, entirely logical.

Vision, thanks for the heads up on this.

Best,

-Commerce

 

[BidNo]

Excellent; there's a glaring need for competition to G in the domain monetization space.

 

[Birdlepop]

Does anybody have an example of how Sendori pages look?

Also, any experiences of how click payrates compare with Adsense and all?

 

[000]

Does anybody have an example of how Sendori pages look?

Sendori is not a traditional parking company, they redirect traffic to the advertiser's site. The example given on their website: user types in nicediamondring.com, Sendori qualifies user, user is redirected to debeers.com.